PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

To access any of the free tools you just need to create a free account to the NSTA
Learning Center by providing your name, email address, and a password of your choosing.
Scroll below to see an overview of each tool.

My Professional Development Plan & Portfolio allows you to create a personalized plan that
outlines your professional development experiences over a period of time, describing how you
will support increased student learning through your increased teacher knowledge and skills.
It allows you to voluntarily upload portfolio materials, such as samples of student work or
augmented lesson plans, and generate written reflections that demonstrate and support your
growth over time as you complete your professional development plan.

My Library is designed to help you organize all your Learning Center
resources. You can keep track of what you’ve selected; and stay on top of
subscriptions. My Library will auto-populate (that is, fill itself in automatically)
once you start selecting your resources. Best of all, no matter which computer you
are working at, you will always have your resources. Resources may be sorted and further subdivided into smaller personalized libraries (called collections) that may then be shared with other educators if you desire to do so.

Within My Library you may

Link to the digital resources you select, such as individual NSTA journal articles, SciGuides, Science Objects, or book chapters.

Identify resources that are subscription-based, such as NSTA SciPacks.

Notify you of subscriptions that are about to expire.

Create collections of resources by topics you desire and add personalized notes to each resource.

The Learning Center My Community Forums allow you to converse and collaborate with science educators from across the country.
Post to existing topics or start your own! All NSTA resources, personally uploaded resources, and collections may be shared and
commented upon within discussions. Join the discussion!

My Calendar: This tool assists you in managing professional
development resources and events that are time sensitive (conferences, submission
deadlines) and may have a fixed duration or lifespan for which they are accessible
(subscription renewals expiration dates). The My Calendar tool is automatically
populated as you select certain professional development opportunities, and also
allows you to enter dates for your own events. Reminders will be made available
if desired and will automatically display upcoming professional development goal
completion dates from your Professional Development Plan. This tool helps you track
your PD opportunities in a ‘monthly’ visual layout format.

My Notepad is designed to let you create personalized notes for any resource within your own section of My Library.

My Notepad will:

Allow your annotations to appear next to each resource you choose to mark. For example, you can make a note about a teaching tip you want to try the next time you use a certain resource, or you can remind yourself to use the resource in conjunction with another item found within your library.

Allow you to sort and collect your notes in an organized way as they build over time.

The Professional Development Indexer helps you diagnose
your needs in specific content areas and provides suggestions of NSTA e-PD resources
and opportunities you may want to consider as you plan your professional development
growth over time. The Indexer does not assign a grade or present a score to the
questions you answer, but saves a list of recommended resources for later review.

My PD Record is designed to let you access your records of participation indefinitely as part of your individual profile. You may print your transcripts and certificates directly from this page and present them to an administrator who requires documentation that you participated in an NSTA conference, or completion of an NSTA learning experience such as an Online Short Course, SciPack, or series of Web Seminars.